William Shakespeare Research Paper

William Shakespeare is one of the most famous writers in history. For hundreds of years, Shakespeare’s works have been celebrated and performed countless times. While Shakespeare is regarded as a genius, there is speculation that Shakespeare did not write his own plays and they were instead written by a different writer. This writer must have come from a background that correlates to the intelligence and elegance reflected in Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. By analyzing and examining texts about the matter, one can deduce that the works attributed to William Shakespeare were not written by Shakespeare himself, but a well educated, traveler nobleman, Edward de Vere.

In his works, William Shakespeare seems to understand a life including royalty

The Earl of Oxford grew up surrounded by royalty and, “His [de Vere] connections, without question, were impeccable,” (238, Shakespeare). In many of Shakespeare’s plays, there is a royal tone that Shakespeare would have been unfamiliar to as a middle-class man. Also, during his lifetime, Shakespeare dedicated two of his sonnets to the third Earl of Southampton, and was believed to have been in a romantic relationship with the Earl. de Vere’s eldest daughter was offered in marriage to the same Earl of Southampton and another daughter was married to an Earl to whom the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works was dedicated. This connects both Shakespeare and de Vere. Additionally, supporters of the Earl have discovered clues that connect de Vere to Shakespeare’s writing. In To Be or Not to Be Shakespeare, Mark Anderson, a supporter of de Vere, points to examples in Hamlet that reflect de Vere’s own life. “He [Anderson] finds...clues in Shakespeare’s settings, plots, and characters.” Since de Vere was of noble status, it would have been easy for him to use elements of his own life in his writings. For example, in Hamlet, the character Polonius is a mockery of de Vere’s father-in-law, Lord Burghley. Shakespeare and de Vere’s connections and links are easily the most prominent of all the